CE Wills

     Hey, everyone. A week or so ago, I bought the movie called The Revenant with Leo DiCaprio starring as Hugh Glass. Hugh is a scout, back in the days when the western United States was still inhabited by trappers, the Indians who hated them and a few settlers. We're talking about the days when rifles were single shot affairs and powder and ball were the technology of the wilderness.        Hugh was a 'squaw man'. He was a white man who had lived with the Indians, taken an Indian wife and had a son who was half Indian. Since my grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee, I find this movie particularly capable of stirring me up.      I didn't go to see this movie at the theater. I had the feeling that it was long and boring, thanks to the reviews. I was pleasantly surprised when it was an excellent show. I love wilderness shows. I love survival shows. I love tales from the old west. (Have written several) I love revenge storie...

     Hey, everyone, out there in radio ... internet land. It is a beautiful fall morning here in the mountains. It is 55 degrees and there is a tiny bit of ground fog in low-lying areas. The mountains are not changing color, much. The dogwoods are crimson, though. The poplars are turning yellow and shedding their clothing like really tall, meticulous strippers. Ha, ha.      I notice things. Like this morning, I noticed that some of my apps on the Padster had a blue dot underneath their little square bodies. Upon careful investigation, I discovered that the apps in question had been updated but had yet to be opened. Fascinating, really. I know how y'all like to keep abreast of these things.      Last night, Carley and I re-watched the movie designated by the title The Edge . I have seen it at least a dozen times and I love it. If there ever was a 5 star show, this is it. It stars Alec Baldwin in a role that should have won h...

    Hey, happy humans around the globe. The weekend is winding down as we speak. I tore down an engine yesterday, just to see what was inside. It took me several hours but it was not as dangerous as my mission in the missile silo of Call of Duty.       I watched a bit of football today and as I watched my Falcons I became convinced of the veracity of my previous claims. The team needs help on the offensive line and a really dominant pass rusher. Still, they should have beat the Saints. It was, however, just ... Joss that they lost. Joss is a Chinese term that indicates fate, inevitability, luck, fortune or a combination of the above. It is a way of life, an attitude, that keeps one from railing at life, or God or tragedy. Yes, I finished re-reading Noble House tonight. That's what prompted me to use the word. It is a novel of Hong Kong, China and the far east. It is like the best steak that you ever ate, except it is a book. I thought about h...

    Hey, everyone. I stayed at home today. I played songs on the keyboard for about an hour and a half this morning, which is unusual for me. Carley and I sang along and it was a lot of fun. Then she fixed me a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and jelly. Then, in the afternoon, came the really thrilling part in which we sat on the porch together. What we do is scoot our chairs together and she uses one ear-bud and I use the other.(Of  her I-Pod). I drank several beers and listened to old tunes. For some reason I was in the mood for songs that rock out pretty good.     I was listening to Joan Jett singing I Love Rock and Roll and I thought that she was turning the gender tables a little bit and watching the young dude at the juke box, like Chuck Berry talking about Go Little Queenie . Good for her, and speaking for myself as a 17 year old guy, I would have welcomed her attentions. Ha, ha.     My day was not totally boring, however...

     Hey, everyone. We had a fun day, here at the green retreat. We took a long walk in the woods and found some neat things. I noticed that the hickory nuts are falling. They seem unusually big this year but may seem so because of the string of dry years we've had lately. Squirrels and deer like to eat them. You can see that one of these nuts has been chewed up.     We noticed that the deer have been licking our mineral block. A mineral block is a big, heavy square made of salt and all the stuff deer like to lick. I don't hunt but we like for the deer to come around, so we can watch them. They will, and have, literally licked a hole in the ground around the block. After a rain, the taste is in the soil, I suppose. We found this cool feather. It is oddly shaped. I like the colors on the right but I don't think it is shaped right to be a hawk's, so I'll have to get my bird book and try to look it up. Later in our walk, we found an array of tiny feathe...

    Hey, everyone. I read Google News on my PC, almost every day. You can customize it to suit your interests and one of 'my' sections is any news under the heading of blogs or blogging. Wow, is it educational and a little freaky to read some of this stuff?     There are bloggers who have a lot of trouble. Just yesterday, I read about a lady called The Skinny Blogger who had made some comments about Kate Upton being fat. (Don't know what photos she was looking at. Ha, ha. ) Anyway, this lady blogger received death threats and rape threats over this stuff. Are we as a people getting too serious about certain things? Well, yeah, I think so.     Some bloggers have been put in prison over things they wrote, I guess. Especially when they are blogging in a country with a totalitarian regime. I admire their grit. Several bloggers who stepped on the wrong toes down around the Mexican and U.S. border have been killed.      Blogg...

    Hey, everyone. We have been dividing our time between the green retreat and our place in the valley. This morning we were up at the green retreat and noticed that dozens of our poplar trees had died, simultaneously. What with an extended dry spell (recently broken) and temperatures over 100 degrees, it is not surprising that more trees have noticed the difference. I'll say it again, I believe that global warming is very real and very dangerous. I also believe that we have already passed the point of fixing it. I was amused to see the oil company executive pontificating on that subject the other day. Whatever.      As I've mentioned before, we have had several species of trees die in our years on the mountain. First it was the dogwoods, then the pin oaks, then sourwoods and now the poplars. Our woods, and our world are changing more rapidly than most believe. Only those who live or work close to nature can hear her silent screams.    ...

Hey, everyone. Today I had one of those odd moments in gaming. I had downloaded a freebie game called ISniper 3D. During the early stages of my campaign, I was on a hill, giving support to my guys by ushering enemies through the Pearly Gates. As I put the crosshairs on one individual, I saw an orange squirrel hopping about at his feet. Was this a guardian angel, disguised as a squirrel, protecting this guy? Was it a test from my superiors, to see if I would be distracted from my mission? Or was it a small robot drone being used by the CIA to spy on the compound?     I don't really know but that darn squirrel was almost impossible to hit. Maybe he was a ninja squirrel or a phantom. Perhaps a ghost squirrel. Maybe the job was getting to me? Then I realized that my meticulous nature was causing me to over-think the issue. The squirrel must die but only after the last soldier was dead. After all, the squirrel had no gun, unless it was concealed...     I spent...

     Hey, everyone. I was on my way home tonight and heard one of my favorite older songs called Seven Spanish Angels. It is by Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. I don't know if you've heard it or not, but here's the recipe.     This song is the story of a young couple during the old west days of gunfights and fugitives that fled across the Rio Grande to start a new life in Mexico. One such young man had just married a lovely young lass when his pursuers from Texas finally caught up with him. In the presence of that young wife, he determined that "If they take me back to Texas, they won't take me back alive!"      Well, they shot him down in the street, in front of his wife and friends. Then the girl determined that she "didn't want to live without her man. She knew his gun was empty and she knew she couldn't win, but her final prayer was answered, when the rifles fired again. Then seven Spanish angels took another angel home." ...

    Hey, everyone. Yes, you were right. My stomach was upset yesterday after that midnight snack. That is not the purpose of this post, however.       A few days ago I read a terrific article by a lady named Alexandra Alter. I read it as an excerpt on Zite, I think, but when I wanted to reread it, I had to do a search and found it on the Wall Street Journal. The title is Your E-Book Is Watching You . It is excellent and I thought I'd share the link. online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304.html       Let me say that I love the creepy picture of the eyes on the printed page. I do hope that you read the article calmly. Like most technical things it is not as bad as it seems but could certainly be abused by governments and others. Here's the gist of the article for those gamers who popped into the site and really have no interest in ebooks.      Evidently, several of the big on-line boo...

    Hey, everyone. I came across this bobcat track the other day in a remote area. Notice that it has four toes and a rear pad. Also notice that there are no evidence of claw marks. This happens because the cat family keeps their claws sheathed until they are ready to use them. Unlike the dog family; dog, coyote, wolf, whose claws show all the time. This print was 2.5 inches across the widest part. A mountain lion's is very similar but they will measure about 4 to 4.5 inches for a mature lion. As big as a man's fist.    If you look in the bottom right of the print it appears that the cat, or some other critter, has overstepped the print and smushed it down a little bit. Also notice how the print is beginning to crumble a bit at the edges, but not much. This print is not all that old. Maybe a day? It certainly had not rained since this animal passed by.     Note also that the track of a bobcat or mountain lion is more rounded than a dog, wolf or ...

     Hey, everyone. First of all, I'd like to thank a nice lady called Marcia Carrington for her kind review of my short story titled Tale of the Black Mushroom , over on Smashwords . She is a romance novelist and I went to Lulu Books and downloaded her story called Looking Back . I enjoyed it very much. An odd, peaceful feeling came over me as I read this story about an elderly lady's look at her life. I suppose that this is because I have been a bit frustrated with my own life, lately, and was in need of some perspective on the whole aging thing. I will give you a link to her books below. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/MarciaCarrington      In other news, I went tracking today in an area several miles from my home. The last time I went to this place, the group I was with found a ton of tracks. Today, not so good. I found almost no tracks and surmised that this was due to the fact that we had torrential rains recently that not only washed awa...

     Hey, everyone. Puzzle people need love, just like everyone else. Although I love the shooter games, I play a bit of the Match 3 games as well. I just recently started on a new one called Crazy Caps HD . It is a fun game and I think you might like it. Moreover, it is free and as far as I can tell, has no in-app con games going on.     As I said, it is a match three. There is a board laid out with bottle caps of different colors and designs. You move a cap so that it will line up three of like color which causes them to flip over and fall off the board. As you progress through the matches, a meter, which resembles a tube of acid, proceeds to fill up on your right. When it is full you proceed to another board. Soon you have cool additions, such as a cap with a rocket on it. When you tap that one it zooms off the board, taking all the caps with it in the direction the rocket is pointing. This racks up some points on filling the acid tube, believe me....

     Hey, everyone. We ventured out to civilization yesterday. We ate at a cafeteria. I was going to go to a movie but the film I wanted to see was already gone. I had thought about seeing the Johnny Depp film called The Rum Diaries but I suppose if 'you snooze, you lose'. It seems to be a bad time for good movies right now. I did watch a good older movie on TV last night. The flick was Wild Things . This has Kevin Bacon, Bill Murray, Matt Dillon, and Neve Campbell. Here's the recipe.     Matt Dillon plays the role of Sam Lombardo, a high school guidance counselor who is accused of forcing his attentions on two of his students. That would certainly be a story but that is barely the start. If I tell you much about it, I may ruin it for you. The situation is complicated. One of the girls involved is wealthy. Her mother ( Theresa Russel as Sandra Van Ryan) and the defendant have a history. A dangerous, crooked cop, played by Kevin Bacon, intends to fulf...

    Hey, everyone. I forgot to mention something earlier,due to my rant. The other day I was outside and happened to look at the side of the house, next to one of the doors. There was a rather large bear track on the wall about five feet high. He had evidently stepped in dirt and then had stood on his hind legs, leaning against the wall. The print was pretty well defined, though light. I took several pictures but none of them showed the print really well.     I measured the print. From toe to heel it was 8 inches. Across the widest part it was 5 inches. It was 5 feet off the ground, which means he was probably around 6 or 6.5 feet 'tall'. So, good size, but not huge. I have seen a small black bear in our woods several years ago. He ran away when he saw me. Since then I have seen many tracks and various signs of his presence. This is the first time any bear has leaned on the house, next to my door, as far as I know. It was, of course, the merest chance that...

    Hey, everyone. I just went for a walk in the woods. My wife is at work so I was alone. Yesterday when I walked I saw just a glimpse of a tawny hide vanish into a patch of laurel. I suspected that it was a mountain lion, returned to his birthplace at the green retreat. They are so ghost-like that it is hard to be sure if they are indeed around until you are facing one with a stick in your hand.     So I was naturally cautious as I left the house today. I saw nothing but I heard faint rustlings from the same thicket and I  was tense. When I got to the creek I smelled a scent post where a lion had sprayed to mark his territory. It is a foul odor and very powerful. It will burn your lungs and put a foul taste in your mouth. Today I had a mint in my mouth at the time and the combination was not a pleasant flavor. You can bet that I was looking in all directions, up in trees and all that. I finished my walk and came home none the worse for wear. Midway ...

    Hey, everyone. I guess that if there's anything I truly love to do, it would have to be killing robots and aliens in defense of mankind. That's just what I'm all about. For this reason I love the new game I bought this past weekend. As you may have guessed from the title of the blog post, I'm talking about NOVA 2 for I-Pad.     Being a bit of a tightwad, I researched the game before buying it. I read reviews on the app store and on blogs, I went to you-tube and watched video reviews etc. The game cost a whopping $6.99 and is a bargain at that price. Here's the recipe. Graphics that are near movie-quality and a fast paced shooter game that is tough to beat. In fact, for a geezer like me, it may be too tough to beat. I prefer things easy these days. These big 'mechs', that's robots, are bad to the bone. After getting my behindus kicked for a while I have to slink off to a corner and kill a few dinosaurs on Carnivore , which is the best game on planet...

My wife was at work so I started out alone for a walk in the woods behind our house. I took the usual path, winding down a hill through a forest of oak, maple, sourwood and mountain laurel.     It was winter but a rather pleasant day for that time of the year. The leaves had all fallen, except for the laurel, of course. I think this fact may have saved me from a bad experience.     I was halfway to the creek and had reached a huge maple we call 'the butt tree' because it has a huge knot on its side that looks like a massive butt. There was a flash of movement up the hill and to the right. When I swung in that direction I saw a young mountain lion who was evidently stalking me as he moved parallel to my course.     The beast was about half grown and he was still bigger, and much longer, than a german shepherd. When he saw he had been discovered he jumped behind a tree to conceal himself. It was somewhat comical. After a moment he took a peak at ...

    I've heard all my life that cats hate water. Since I've moved to the wilderness I've learned that animals are rather unpredictable. Their actions depend on the individual critter, their needs, the whim of the moment and a zillion other things. Let me tell you another true story to illustrate.      It was a rainy evening, about thirty minutes before dark. The weather was warm and I had been sitting on my deck at the back of my house. As usual, I had sipped a couple of beers and listened to some music on my I-pod. The drizzling rain had coaxed me under the eave of the house at the glass doors which open to the deck and the forest.      My eye was attracted to a movement from my right, only about thirty feet away. When I swiveled my head I saw a mountain lion walking past the house in a direction that would take it past the side of my house to the front yard. That was not the most surprising thing, however.    ...

    One night as I lay in bed with my hands folded behind my head, I heard a thump at the opposite end of the house. It sounded as though a heavy body had landed on the roof. Then I heard something walking right along the ridge of the house. As you know if you've ever had someone shingle your roof, the sounds are magnified for those inside.      As I lay and listened with keen interest, the steps proceeded the length of the house until the creature was directly over the bedroom. They paused for a moment and then ceased as the animal evidently leaped to the ground below. The next morning I found mountain lion tracks at that side of the house. They showed fairly well in the place where he had landed due to the drop. After that there was no evidence of his passing. The beast was probably hoping to pounce upon his prey from the elevated position.      As you might well imagine we thought about this when we came home at night in the w...